Music City power player Richard Busch

Nashville has quickly become ground zero for a fight over how, amid dwindling CD sales, artists and songwriters get paid.

In the midst of it all is Richard Busch, a Nashville-based entertainment attorney with King & Ballow.

Busch, who has represented the likes of Eminem, Kenny Rogers and Toto, is making a name for himself among songwriters and their advocates. He was recently included on Billboard’s 2012 Power 100 list, a ranking of the most influential people in the music business.

“One of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done is to be known as someone who is kind of fighting for the little guy, for the songwriters who otherwise wouldn’t have the ability or don’t have the voice to pursue the record labels,” he said.

Most notably, Busch represented a publishing company that owned the rights to some of rap star Eminem’s most famous songs. In F.B.T. Productions LLC v. Aftermath Records, et al, the court found that agreements between record labels and digital download providers, like iTunes, should be treated as licenses. In essence, that meant songwriters and artists would get up to 50 percent more cash than under previous terms.

Busch “is ensuring that writers and artists are compensated for their time and talents in a way that is fair in the age of digital music. His insights have significantly impacted the way the music industry works,” said Joel Martin, manager of Detriot-based F.B.T. Productions.

For Busch, the success has mostly been about being in the right place in the right time. While on a trip in New York, Busch connected with F.B.T., which ultimately came to him with 476 separate cases of copyright infringement. For the past decade, Busch has tried each and every one of them. Ninety percent of those cases, he said, have settled while the remainder he helped win in court.

So, what’s next? Busch has plans to take on advertising-based music models, like Spotify and Pandora.

“When they give away the product in exchange for advertising revenue, how is that then distributed among the artist?”